Trying to place a last-minute bet on the Super Bowl in Illinois on Sunday might have been a difficult and frustrating task.
Illinois sports betting customers at DraftKings, BetRivers, and FanDuel encountered disruptions on Sunday. The majority of outages occurred in the hour leading up to kickoff, with some interruptions persisting throughout the game.
PointsBet and William Hill, the two other online sportsbooks in Illinois, did not encounter any problems.
Kambi, the backend provider for DraftKings and BetRivers, appears to be the cause of the technical difficulties customers are facing with these two apps.
DraftKings provided the following statement to Legal Sports Report, the sister site of Play Illinois:
“We regret to inform customers that there was a temporary outage on our mobile and online Sportsbook,” stated LSR. “The interruption was caused by a sudden increase in traffic, impacting our server provider. However, our in-house technology supporting Dss and lakes products are functioning smoothly. This incident highlights the importance of owning our own systems.”
DraftKings intends to shift to its technology platform by the end of the month.
Kambi explained that the outage occurred due to an unusually large number of bets being placed on a single market.
The company quickly identified and resolved a specific issue before starting, allowing Kambi to process the largest number of bet chapters in its history.
Prior to its conclusion, the launch of Barstool Sportsbook in Illinois, powered by Kambi, was already anticipated to happen soon.
However, FanDuel posted the following tweet on Sunday:
We have been informed that users in Michigan and Illinois are experiencing difficulties logging in and placing bets on the Sportsbook website. Our team is currently working to resolve this issue quickly. We will provide updates as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
– FanDuel Customer Support on February 7, 2021
Kamb does not work for FanDuel, which uses its own systems.
Illinois legitimate bets on the first Super Bowl
Since legal sports gambling is still a recent development in the US, it is not unexpected.
Regulated operators are still cautioned against participating in it. The Super Bowl remains the most popular sports event for placing bets in a single year.
Even though there were challenges, the number of location hits for sports betting on Super Bowl Sunday increased by 236% compared to the previous year. This led to an overwhelming influx of visitors, causing some providers to crash due to the high demand.
What is the good news? As we work through challenges in our initial phase, we anticipate smoother operations moving forward.
Why it’s nice to have more competition
Only five online casinos in Illinois are currently operating, with 60% of them experiencing downtime at various points on Super Bowl Sunday.
These three operators were also the most popular in Illinois.
Out of the five books in IL, two utilize Kambi. If our predictions are accurate and Barstool Illinois is the next operator to launch, then Kambi will be powering half of the sportsbooks in the state.
While not ideal for online shoppers, that option is still suitable for occasions like Sunday.
Unibet and BetMGM are planning to debut their online sportsbooks in Illinois, which could increase the total number of website operators to eight this year. It is worth mentioning that BetMGM faced some challenges in Nevada on Sunday, but the issues did not receive as much public scrutiny as those of other operators.
The Buccaneers emerged victorious against the Chiefs on Sunday with a final score of 31-9, much to the delight of those who placed bets on the game.
Everyone agreed that the Tampa Bay final was a three-point underdog.
